


Yasha Watches from a Distance

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, I felt like there needed to be more Yasha work, Like, and some of the dialogue from that ep fit perfectly, but its there, i don't say it, i hope its ok, i just love this group so much, i love how close Yasha and Molly are, this is also kinda a 5times thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 11:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14135226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Yasha watches from the trees, from the rocks and the mountains, watched the specks of blue and purple and green on the horse that's too old and too tired to drag them any further, and she watches.She watches them for all she's worth, for all she is and ever will be, and she keeps her eyes fixated on the group they call The Mighty Nein.No matter how hard she tries to pull her eyes away, she's afraid she'll miss something, and quickly turns back. Usually to nothing, but sometimes Yasha watches- and is glad that she did. Yasha doesn't want to lose another family because she wasn't there to protect them.





	Yasha Watches from a Distance

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing fic for this campaign and I tried so hard you guys.  
> I mean, I loved it so expect more in the future, but I really hope you like it.  
> Yasha is great and mysterious and I love her with my soul. I may have overdone her friendship with Mollymauk BUT I TRIED GOD DAMN IT.

Yasha watched from a distance.

Though the trees, she watches the small wooden cart with that poor old horse they never did get the chance to eat drag them all through the muddy terrain. The horse stuttered, the little goblin girl crawling across his neck and petting his head as he shook.

She followed, followed until they made camp in the little nook on the side of the road. The opposite side from Yasha and her heavy curtain of thick-trunked trees, but that was better. She sat, stretching her legs out and unclipping her sword as they made camp, the dirty one winding a thread around their encampment, a small flame glowing in the middle.

Molly stretched out his bedroll, took off his overcoat and swords, tucked them together. Yasha watched him go through the motions, as she had for as long as she had known him. Followed the fast moving of his hands and the too-far-away words she almost knew off by heart.

Stretching and standing on his toes, he took a look around, eyes searching the forest. His eyes fell on her, and she could see his wicked, knowing grin from her spot on the other side of the road. He didn’t go to her, didn’t point her out. Only acknowledged her, smiled and relaxed as he saw her familiar shock of black/white hair and painted skin. He sat down hard on his bedroll and seemed to mutter something under his breath, and Yasha knew he was saying goodnight to her. She smiled, watched him crawl under the sheets and pass out. Always too tired for his own good.

The little girl- Nott- snuck away from the group and Yasha followed from her side of the road. She stopped at a group of buffalo-like creatures, and saw Nott twist her hands around something small, mutter into her them and walk back.

Yasha stayed where she was that night, hidden behind the thick canopy and dense tree growth. When Molly and the girls crossed the road the next day, Yasha wasn’t there, and neither was any sign that she ever was.

* * *

 

She was more careful the next time, staying a back, staying away. Molly kept looking, but she was always too hidden for him.

The next time, she stayed close enough to hear them, missed Molly’s voice and his stupid jokes too much to admit, and she stayed in a smaller tree grouping a short distance away. She sat, she hid, she listened, she watched.

Molly was lying again, but that’s to be expected. All he had was his lies and his sharp silver tongue. The green one- Ford? Fjord? - rolled his eyes, scoffed, feigned mock surprise, hand over his heart. The humans seemed to be listening, and the wizard sat back with his head in his book. Yasha made a mental note to ask him about that next time they spoke.

Picking up his swords, Molly swished them around his head, put on his coat, gave a bow, and walked away, disappearing behind the crest of a hill, his swords the only things seen as he flipped them over in the sky and in his hands like he used to before their shows.

Nott says she believes him. Fjord says he doesn’t believe anything he says. Jester, more concerned with her drawings and Caleb with his book. The other human- the cute, angry one- watched the swords spin in the air and seemed not to care either way.

Yasha picked the wildflowers that were hidden in the mud under her feet and pressed them in the book beside the ones Nott gave her and smiled.

* * *

 

She hadn’t expected to get involved, not so early in their team up, but here she was, running through the woods after the skipping blue tiefling that Molly liked so much, drawing her sword, running faster than the others calling out behind her.

Yasha had heard the gnoll before Jester had, watched the cleric bend down to sketch small pictures of things in her book once they’d caught her eye, a red-jammed and slightly stale pastry hanging in her mouth, half eaten.

Nott and Beau were calling out to her, and as Jester skipped away, deeper into the forest, Yasha saw the hungry yellow eyes, drool dripping from a snarling maw, watched it prowl after her. She was oblivious, focused on the patterns in the trees.

She cried something about the Traveller and sprinted away, the gnoll following. Yasha stood, ran after her, pulling her sword free as she leapt over boulders and fallen trees.

The gnoll was right under her, and she leapt above it, spinning in the air and cleaving its head right off its shoulders, landing on the ground. She rolled deeper into the brush just as Jester spun around, whipping her sickle off her shoulder.

She made some comment about ears and hurried to cut them off and stuff them in a jar. Beau and Nott caught up, panting and panicked, leaning against the rock.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Beau cried, whipping her brow with the sash hanging from her hips. “Where’d you go? Something could have happened. You could have died!”

Jester laughed, closing the lid on the jar. “Don’t worry.” She pointed to the dead and headless body on the ground, blood seeping from the neck and flowing into the grass. “The Traveller is looking out for me.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go.”

Yasha slowly followed them back, panting, whipping her sword on the brush as kept a close eye, holding back a laugh at Nott’s shy request to be drawn and Jesters excited and determined agreement, picking Nott up and running back towards the camp.

She watched Beau for a moment, watched her place her head in her hands, and _did_ smile at how she stuck her tongue between her grinning teeth and punched a tree, running after them.

* * *

 

Molly was performing tarot readings, and Yasha sat with her back to the opposite side of a tree, closer she had ever gotten, to listen, to follow.

She was more used to standing beside him, hand on her sword hilt, ready in case someone was unhappy with their fortune and lashed out at Molly. Others would scoff, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

Jester sat with her hands clasped in front of her as Molly twirled cards between his fingers, flipping them back in the deck as he sat with his eyes closed and quietly counted and memorised the feel of the cards in their new order, running his fingers over the picture of the Platinum Dragon, the Eye, the Moon, categorising everything he knew about Jester already. She’d watched him do this a million times, had it done to her a few times, and Yasha could never believe how accurate he sometimes was.

He spread cards in front of Jester, on the grass by their feet, and watched him run his hands over them and flip them face up in one fast motion.

Yasha was too far away to see the cards, but Molly quietly read them out loud, a habit he’d picked up to gain the attention of evesdroppers or surrounding people. It worked, and the others quietly crowded around the two tieflings as he read them out. “The Shadow, the Eye, and the Chariot.”

Fjord and Beau scoffed as he described the meanings, and quietly chuckled to themselves about how he was scamming innocent people out of their money and time.

Yasha narrowed her eyes, picked up a stone, and flicked it at Fjord, who ducked into Beau and slipped on the still damp grass and into a colourful and grumbling pile.

Standing up and slipping between the trees again, Yasha quietly recounted the meaning of the cards that she knew off by heart, mumbling the tales he painted again and again and again until they had burned into Yasha’s memory with all the uniqueness and colour of his coat, different for each person, and thought again how Molly might not be bullshitting as much as they all thought he was.

* * *

 

The last time she was too far, much too far away from the party. Molly was on watch, she knew, she’d seen him before she had found a fresh patch of grass hidden away behind stones, kneeled down with her symbol to the Storm Lord clasped tightly between her hands and prayed for guidance and friendship and hope, but she should have known not to take her eyes off of Mollymauk.

Should have known that he would drop off, _always too tired for his own good_ , and she knew it was a mistake, but she was so lost in her prayer, so focused on her words and their meanings and her connection, she didn’t know anything was wrong until she heard the _twang_ of a crossbow, and the wet groan she knew all too well.

When she looked over the rocks, she saw the wizard who she now knew not as Caleb swaying on his feet, three spindly, jagged and long bolts buried deep in his chest, Beau with on in her clenched fist, an inch away from Caleb’s chest before she spun and hurled it back at the shooter, hitting him hard and dropping him to the ground.

She knew Molly’s swords would be in the cart, tucked away safely inside his coat. Nott was nowhere to be seen, but occasional smaller bolts would fire from the darkness. Fjord had his sword, a glowing beacon of light, the only light save for the dying embers in the fire, Jester sprinting towards Caleb to catch him, hands lighting up with holy energy.

Yasha stood, about to run forward and intervene like she promised herself she wouldn’t do, until Molly pushed to the front of the group, a large, wicked glave held in his hands, pointed at the bandits.

Yes, they were bandits, she could see them now. All dressed in the same shabby blacks and browns, same cross-stitched symbol and weapons. They can handle simple bandits, so even though the leather on her sword hilt creaked under her grip, she waited ands tayed to the shadows.

The trouble was settled not by swords and spells but by the equally sharp tongue of Mollymauk, his keen wit and selectable generosity that had the group slowly, ashamedly, trudge off back where they came from, Nott coming back from the darkness with horses and Molly lowering the glave to run to Caleb’s side, apologies now on his lips instead of the previous idle threats.

Yasha kept her eyes on them the rest of the night, kept her eyes trained on the new people who had entered her life and made sure they had a full deserved rest under the watchful gaze of the Storm Lord and his faithful follower.

* * *

 

She remembered feeling lonely, like it was finally time to reconvene with her friends, with Molly, and pretend she needed information about their travels, pretend not to know anything. Most importantly, she knew she needed a bath, so before heading off in search of her friends, she went and found the closest bath house, "The Steams Respite", and after paying an ungodly amount of gold for a bath, she stripped off and slid into the water, without any possessions apart from her greatsword, never far from her side.

She wasn’t sure how long she was in there for, how long she was relaxing in the steaming heat of the boiling pool, but eventually, someone jumped into the water right in front of her with an excited squeal and a giant splash and she thought _ah, they must have found me._

Jesters head popped up from the water, her hair flying backwards and slapping the back of her neck, and she grinned at Yasha with all the excitement of a child at the carnival. “Yasha!” she cried, throwing her arms around her. She flinched but didn’t push her away.

Watching the rest of the Nein walk into the room, she leant back further, eyes wandering up and down everyone in the same state of undress. “Oh, well if it isn’t my old friends.”

There was a flurry of hello’s, a barrage of excitement, and then Yasha was telling them: “You know, I’ve been tracking you guys for quite some time and I knew you were here, but I wanted to get a bit of a bath first, bit of a rub down, treat myself.” She internally chuckled, knowing only Molly would understand the literalness of that statement.

Speaking of Molly, Yasha sat up slightly and craned her head, searching the room for the all too familiar flash of purple and colour and confidence, only to see Molly striding straight towards her, the cocky grin she loved so much plastered on his face as he sat in the bath beside her, kissing her on the head. “It took you long enough to bloody find us.” He grumbled, sinking down into the water.

“I know,” she mumbled, kissing him back, his horns a hard barricade to his hair that she’s learnt to ignore. “I just had some things to take care of first.”

He eyed her, grinning that infernal grin, seeing into the very cracks of her half-truths and her loneliness. “I’m just glad you found us and that you're safe.” He whispered instead, and he punched her gently on the shoulder.

There was excitement and laughter and happiness, something about an old couple and sex, conversations about gods and the Storm Lord and questions about privacy, remoteness. Yasha didn’t mind, because until she had to leave again, until she had to watch them from the safe distance of another far away tree line, she was just happy to be here , watching them up close for once, in the boiling hot water with some new people- some new friends- she would hope to soon call family.


End file.
